Today's Ramble

So I was sitting and idly reading through some of my old blog posts and I said - y'know, Jeff, you're a funny old bugger. Honestly, some of the stuff I write about! Goodness gracious! To say I am eclectic is to say that the Blue Whale is quite big. But it came upon me time and again that the funniest and arguably the best posts are usually the  free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness rambles that sort of start from nowhere and take on a life of their own. Sometimes I don't even have a clue what the heck I'm going to write about or even the point of it all until it's all over. But that, mes amis, is just the way I like it. It's the way I converse naturally, especially with family members, so why not? 


My girlfriend Laura has time and oft commented that listening to my sister and I have a conversation is one of the funniest things ever (or words to that effect). And I think it's probably to do with the fact that we have a shared experience (our childhood) and the fact that we like a lot of the same things and find a lot of the same stuff funny, so we have our own little references to things, like little in-jokes. But unlike ordinary in-jokes where the joke is kept private, part of the fun is in explaining the source of the joke to others, because it's usually a great story. I also have an active imagination and a liking for somewhat surreal humour. So add all those ingredients together and whaddya got? Lil' ole me.


Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, rambling. I was rambling about rambling. So let's cut the preamble and amble down a ramble, or the whole thing will be a bit of a shambles. Oh, and watch out for the brambles. 


I was thinking about this whole Amy Winehouse thing. It's the same old story, isn't it - troubled artist, addictive personality, prodigious talent, dead at 27. Many other no-talent hacks writers have remarked upon the fact that other tortured souls before her had died at the same age - Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison being the four well-known ones, but the "27 Club" as it became known contains other notables, and not just musicians either. Poet Rupert Brooke, dancer William Lane (aka "Master Juba") and Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man being other examples. More recent additions include Kurt Cobain and Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff.  Others include blues legend Robert Johnson, Dave Alexander of The Stooges, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan of The Grateful Dead,  The Manic Street Preachers' Richey James Edwards (OK, that's a tricky one; he's only missing, presumed dead, and he was 27 when he went missing. However, the circumstances were freaky - his car was found abandoned and all signs point to him jumping off the Severn Bridge - but the band has kept paying royalties into his bank account for him should he ever turn up alive) and Echo & The Bunnymen drummer Pete DeFreitas. All 27. Every single one.


Reading a list like that, it kinda makes you glad to be older than 27, doesn't it? Dangerous age to be. Of course, the list is not confined to musicians and sideshow freaks. Andrew Cunanan, the guy that killed Gianni Versace, too. Steve Olin, baseball player. Pat Tillman, football player.  Andres Escobar, Colombian soccer star. Actor Jonathan Brandis. Henry Moseley, English physicist. Bobby Sands, IRA hunger striker. Jean-Michel Basquiat, for Pete's sake. All of them gone at 27. Blimey.


So what exactly is my point? I dunno. I cannot draw any definite conclusions from any of this. So why am I writing about it? Well, ya gotta write about something. You can't just leave your faithful public waiting and waiting, you have to get out there and publish, dammit. I wish I were more disciplined about my writing, but I have so many passions and likes and dislikes and other stuff whirring around this strange grey glob (well, I assume it's grey - it might be turquoise for all I know) inside my cranium, and so much other stuff to fit into my day that it's a wonder I can even walk and chew gum at the same time. In fact, it's a wonder any of us can. (In case you're wondering, yes, I can.) The whole Transition Town thing is becoming a major part of my life and I don't want to stop, because I need to get the group to a level where it can sustain itself without me at the helm. I love what I'm doing, and I want to follow through on what I started, because i truly believe we are making a difference. As the great  German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe once declared, "Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. begin it now."